Leo Haks Indonesian Photographs Collection 1860S–1940S
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collection focus Leo Haks Indonesian photographs collection 1860s–1940s Philip Klier Andamanese This collection allowed me to combine a lifelong passion for photography with a professional fishing in Burma album c.1887 albumen silver interest in Indonesia. A sprinkling of guilt feeling for what my Dutch ancestors had done in photograph 21.1 x 27.0 cm National Gallery of Australia, that country, good and less so, made for an exciting challenge. Canberra Purchased 2007 In the collection I assembled over a 30-year period, I tried to show Indonesia as it was between about 1860 and 1940. Staying away from the colonists and their direct influence on the country, I spent most emphasis on the Indonesian people, their culture and the landscape, without concentrating on portraiture per se. Seeing the collection move to Australia will most hopefully see it being used by scholars of different disciplines so as to gain a better understanding of Indonesia, its closest neighbour, to their mutual and lasting benefit. The prospect of this happening made the parting of the collection a happy rather than dramatic event. I wish the National Gallery of Australia will long cherish the guardianship of this collection. Leo Haks, August 2007 36 national gallery of australia Museum and gallery curators obviously collect for their institutions and apply scholarship to their cataloguing and in presenting works to the public, but they are rarely out there in the junk shops or collectibles auctions or eBay and most often buy through reputable dealers, major auctions and private collectors. Collectors, in turn, vary from the highly intuitive, who rarely write or talk about their collections, to people who are great experts involved in scholarly publications and exhibitions. Curators end up with a trove of stories they can relate (and some they can’t) about their encounters and meetings with collectors. Sometimes the story is about not meeting them, as in the case of Jane Kinsman, Senior Curator of International Prints, who for years wrote regular letters to benefactor Orde Poynton but never met the elusive man who left the Gallery millions in his will. Other curators have weekly phone calls with collector–benefactors. I once rowed out to a yacht in quest of a missing collection. Meetings with dedicated, passionate and pioneering collectors usually leave curators with a greater respect for the originality and astuteness of the collector, who patiently builds and builds over a lifetime in areas overlooked or even dismissed by the current market and museum. four storey Amsterdam home – were expertly catalogued Charles J Kleingrothe Interior of the Istana Maimun, In August this year, the Gallery acquired a collection and rehoused in archival sleeves, new bindings or specially Medan in Sumatra album made cases. c. 1900 27.8 x 36.2 cm from such a collector, Leo Haks of Amsterdam, who National Gallery of Australia, started collecting from a chance purchase in Burma (now The collection came to the attention of the National Canberra Purchased 2007 Myanmar) in 1977. Prior to leaving for Singapore, where Gallery of Australia while I was doing electronic research his new job as manager of the Insight guides to Asia travel to develop the Gallery’s new focus collection of Asian and books awaited him, he bought an album of photographs Pacific photography – initiated by Director Ron Radford of Burma in the 1870s–1890s. The album, by the Rangoon in 2005 and in preparation for the 2008 exhibition The (now Yangon) studio of German-born photographer Philip first century of Asia–Pacific photography 1840s–1940s. Klier (1845–1911), was subsequently taken apart to provide In 2005, the only Indonesian photographs I knew were illustrations for one of the Insight guides. Later, it was nearly a century apart: the rich tone prints of the studio carefully rebound. of English-born photographers Walter Woodbury and From that start in 1977, Haks became fascinated with James Page, who had previously worked in Australia in the early photography in Indonesia between the 1860s and 1850s; and the famed French photojournalist Henri Cartier- 1940s. In the 1980s, he returned to Amsterdam and Bresson’s Bali pictures from the 1950s. However, what became a dealer in rare books and Balinese paintings. was also apparent was that the history of photography in He co-authored a number of books on Indonesian art the former Dutch East Indies was poorly known beyond and continued building what became the only museum the archives and museums in the Netherlands. Indonesian standard holding of Indonesian photography in private photography became of great interest to the Gallery as it hands. The Klier album remained special to Haks was undervalued in the market and pertinent to the new throughout the decades. collecting focus on the Asia and Pacific region. It also Leo Haks built a collection of 5000 prints, as well as complements the existing collection strengths in Southeast thousands more in albums both grand and humble. These Asian textiles in particular. albums, prints and his library of over 140 mostly rare books Over the years Leo Haks lent works to many on the subject – all lugged up the narrow staircases of his international exhibitions and provided illustrations to artonview summer 2007–08 37 Woodbury and Page numerous publications on Indonesian culture and history. little idea of what the Netherlands even looks like! The Eoli 1877 in Souvenir van Atjeh 1884–89 He has a small website on his various collections and collection, however, was comprehensive and all works albumen silver photograph inventory, and with the wonder of the internet we were were of exceptional quality, which indicated a ruthless 31.0 x 36.6 cm National Gallery of Australia, soon in correspondence. On discovering Haks was due patience and constant culling and trading-up. Although Canberra to be in Australia for a short trip in 2006, I organised a originally catalogued with a social perspective by subject, Unknown photographer meeting in Sydney. There, an invitation to visit Canberra the collection was reorganised for my visit; Haks had Family portrait c.1900 gelatin silver photograph was extended and accepted. Several works were acquired recognised the art museum perspective and grouped 19.3 x 14.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, that year from Haks. the photographs by photographer. As Haks is also a Canberra Director Ron Radford saw the potential for a major photographer we found we shared a fairly convergent idea acquisition and encouraged further negotiations, including of which were the finest prints and photographers. my visit to Amsterdam in November 2006, and a follow up The Haks collection shows life and landscape in visit by Haks to Canberra in June 2007. Going through the Indonesia from the 1860s to 1950s, the last century of collection was an intense experience sitting side-by-side Dutch colonial rule. The period covers the development through long days of opening boxes. Visits to museum of the modern photographic system of multiple prints collections in the Netherlands and to other collectors also – from glass negatives in the 1860s to the versatile roll took up much of my time; so much so that I still have film cameras of the 1920s to 1950s. Some 2000 prints 38 national gallery of australia are nineteenth- to early twentieth-century albumen prints in Indonesia. Most were residents and Indonesia was Sem Cephas Portrait of a Javanese woman c.1890 and early gelatin silver photographs, many of which are their adopted country where they spent the remainder gelatin silver photograph, in studio albums. In addition, there are 87 family albums, of their lives – as opposed to short term visiting foreign colour pigment 28.5 x 24.0 cm 146 collotypes, 556 gravures and photogravures, and photographers. A number of Chinese and Japanese National Gallery of Australia Canberra 22 offset plate rare books – Haks chose not to acquire photographers were among the earliest non-European Woodbury and Page daguerreotypes of the 1840s to 1850s or salt prints on photographers at work in Indonesia – a pattern repeated Statue of a raksasa or paper due to their scarcity and lack of a broad range of across Asia and the Pacific. The island of Bali features giant at Singasari in Vues de Java 1860 subject matter. In the collection, formats vary from tiny prominently and there are fine studies of batik costume and albumen silver photograph cartes-de-visite to large plate landscapes, several mammoth Indonesian dancers. There are gorgeous sharply detailed 24.3 x 19.2 cm National Gallery of Australia, plate portraits and panoramas, and content ranges from albumen prints in which a host of long dead members of Canberra vernacular and family portraits to grandiose presentation the royal courts seem to be alive and present. George Lewis Gieterij albums – forerunners of present day glossy annual reports. The acquisition of the Leo Haks collection is one of met smeltovens, richting lost west 1902 The Klier album is of Burma, and some material is from the most significant ever undertaken by the Gallery. It will in De Nederlandsch-Indische Industrie te Soerabaya Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai – many photographers sustain many years of investigation by scholars and curators gelatin silver photograph in the region worked in various countries or sold prints from across various disciplines both within Australia and, it is 16.8 x 22.8 cm National Gallery of Australia, several in their shops. The Haks collection of Indonesian hoped, from Indonesia. Haks, who will be living in New material, however, includes all major and minor professional Zealand from 2008, will no doubt also come to visit, and names including Woodbury and Page, Tassilo Adam, I expect the odd parcel of additions may also find its way HM Neeb, CJ Kleingrothe, Kassian Cephas, Isidore Van to the national collection.